special needs

Happy ****ing New Year

Chris Irvine, Parent Coach1 Comment

Two thousand sixteen started out great! We went to a lively party at my BFF’s house just up the street for New Year’s Eve, and thanks to celebrating East Coast New Year’s in California, I was home before midnight. We celebrated the following night by dancing to a highly entertaining 80s cover band at a nearby music venue. I haven’t had such a fun-filled two hours in a very long time. I danced so hard I kind of injured my permanently fragile neck, but after about three days I was recovered. And it was totally worth it.

And then, on January 2nd, Maddie came home from camp. I am both sad and embarrassed to report that although I was certainly happy to see my sweetie-pie, life got more challenging in that instant. What followed was four unsuccessful days of badgering her to take a shower along with the anticipation of the impending school week. I was temporarily relieved when I learned she had Monday and Tuesday off, so we had a couple extra days of camp recovery time.

I was optimistic. I’m not sure why. There was no reason to believe that a new year would bring new behaviors. In fact, I have never put much importance on the change in years. So, one day it’s 2015 and the next day it’s 2016? One day it’s Thursday and the next day it’s Friday. So what? It’s just another day. Not very romantic or sentimental, I know. I have just never had that feeling that the first day of a new calendar year was particularly significant. So why for even a second did I think otherwise?

As it turns out, my first and usual instinct was right. We are right back where we started. In hell.

Tuesday Maddie was in a good mood. She woke up around 8:00, very early for a teenager on vacation. She had energy and was perky and when I asked her if she was ready for school the following day, she gave me an enthusiastic affirmative response. All right! I thought. Tomorrow is going to happen! 

Well, “tomorrow” did happen. Oh, yeah, it happened all right. It happened like all those other miserable days of 2015 when my tired kid just dug in her heels and said, “No.” How quickly my optimism turned into anxiety and a sense of defeat. Those feelings are so close to the surface for me all the time. Frankly it’s a wonder that I ever feel otherwise. But I guess it’s all that darn hope I try to grasp onto with my fingernails (or whatever substitutes for fingernails when your stressful life meets with a bad habit and you’re left with nails torn down to the nubs).

Maddie, too, was at least superficially optimistic about today. She chalked up her inability to (or refusal to) get up yesterday to a rough night with a cat who kept clawing at her face all night. She felt justified in the afternoon after sleeping an additional five hours. “See, M0m?” she pointed out. “It wasn’t really a choice to stay home. I needed to. I slept for five hours.”

“You could probably do that any day,” I replied. Seriously, what teenager couldn’t?

“Well, I’m better now. And I’ll put Daisy out tonight.”

“You promise you’ll go to school tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she insisted. And at the moment she really meant it. At least I think she did.

But promises don’t mean much to Maddie if breaking the promise behooves her in some way. Don’t get me wrong: if you tell her a secret, she’s a vault. If she promises you a sword, she’d rather skip her homework and/or sleep to make it. But if she’s promising to do something that’s going to be difficult, don’t count on much.

So as you guessed, this morning, day two, didn’t go so well. She did get up. She got dressed with a lot of coaxing and even some actual help from me. She even came upstairs and put on her backpack, but she stopped in her tracks when she stepped outside the front door.

Clearly she was stressed. She was so stressed, in fact, that she reverted to something she did long ago to soothe herself: she dampened a wash cloth to suck on. That’s a bad sign, I know, but I was hoping that a little self-soothing would help her cope with what was to come. And honestly I believe once she was on her way, everything would have been fine. But the anticipation of a challenging day was apparently too much.

And things went downhill from there.

I’m sick with a terrible cold, reminiscent of, but certainly not as terrible as, the case of pneumonia I had last year. My husband is sick, too.

“There’s some dog poop over there,” said my son. “It looks weird.” Our puppy hasn’t been 100% well the last few days, as evidenced by the varying levels of weirdness of what’s coming out of him. So I picked up what I could with some toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet, only to see water gurgle up and actually over flow. Luckily (or not so luckily) I have an inordinate amount of experience with clogged toilets, thanks mostly to Maddie’s historically dramatic overuse of toilet paper, so I went straight for the water supply and turned it off before too much water escaped.

Then it was time to take my son to school. We left just a few minutes later than normal, and then I forgot to make a particular left turn that helps us avoid traffic, so I got stuck in the usual frustrating line. I was thankful that he was willing to hop out of the car early so I could avoid the worst of it and turn around and go home. It’s the little things, you know.

I still have a little water to clean up. And I don’t think I have the right rug cleaner to do a great job on the dog poop. But those are little things too.

The big thing is Maddie. My son had a thousand ideas to share with me in the car on the way to school. He had tried several approaches to get Maddie motivated this morning, and while I marvel at his wisdom and thoughtfulness, he can’t really help me. I figured I’d let him try, though. Why not? After all, when one member of your family is acting out, the whole family suffers.

Maybe there’s an ALANON-type thing for families like ours. I recall hearing this somewhere: “When one member of the family has autism, the WHOLE family has autism.” No, that doesn’t make us all autistic, but we all suffer from it, or benefit from it, or are in some other ways immensely impacted by it.

And today the impact isn’t good. I’m exhausted from being sick and having a sick husband.

I’m pessimistic at the moment, although perhaps I shouldn’t be now that I think about it. For some people the start of a new year brings hope and a new outlook. For Maddie newness isn’t good. New starts aren’t good. She does better when she’s in the swing of things. We just need to get her there.

Forget the new year, then. Forget starting over. Forget change. Just keep going. Keep plugging away.

The January question of the month: “Did you make any resolutions?”

No, I did not. I never do. Maybe, in the end, that’s a good thing. My resolutions aren’t annual; they’re daily. My resolution is always to do the best I can and try to forgive myself. My resolution is to survive the day and then start over the next day. My resolution is to try to keep my cool the best that I can in the face of some extraordinarily challenging circumstances.

Happy New Year? Sure, I guess. Happy New Day? Maybe. Just New Day? Always.

 

How to Move the Unmovable

Chris Irvine, Parent Coach1 Comment

How do you move a concrete wall?

If only this were a riddle or there was some trick to it. The answer, I’m afraid, is you don’t. You can push and coax and cry and kick and scream, but the wall doesn’t care. The wall is stuck. The wall’s purpose is to be there, to stay there, to be firm and strong, no matter what forces oppose it.

And so it is with my child with autism.

The difference is with a wall, you would think, “Oh, well. It’s a wall, for Pete’s sake! Of course I can’t move it! What a good wall!”

With a kid, you think, “There has got to be a way.” There has got to be a way, even though there has never been a way. There has go to be a way because it’s not acceptable for there not to be a way. There has got to be a way because she’s a person, not a wall.

Unfortunately, when this particular person is short on sleep, the foundation digs even deeper into the soil. She is prepared for an earthquake after all, and no amount of earthshaking is going to rattle her even a little bit. She is bulletproof, earthquake proof, everything-proof. She is reward-proof, punishment-proof, logic-proof, emotion-proof.

That is how determined she is. I guess you have to admire her a little bit.

Unfortunately, Maddie stayed home all day yesterday and slept or just hung out in bed. I was kind of expecting it because she had been out of school for five whole days, and even a three-day weekend can make for a rough first morning back. So she was tired yesterday and behaved accordingly, which has a spiraling effect: If you lie around and sleep all day, you probably won’t sleep at night, which makes you sleepy the next day. And here we are. She needs to get up and suffer a little bit, but she won’t.

Yesterday she said she needed to sleep and would go to school later. But of course “later” never came. I asked her repeatedly about going to school, and finally asked her for a definitive answer to save myself some trouble. Did she intend to go? No. Yeah, I thought so.

She is saying the same thing now. She wants to sleep a little more and then I can drive her to school. But I have plans today. As happens many days, those plans may have to wait. I have a kid to deal with. I might have to spend the morning coaxing her up and driving her to school at the exact moment I hoped to be walking in the woods with a friend. I could really use some fresh air, some friend time, some nature. How therapeutic that would be!

Instead my chest is tight. My head is pounding. (Thank goodness for the funny Donald Trump post on Facebook today. It’s helping a little.)

I’m especially stressed out because Maddie’s drama class has a performance tonight. If she misses school today, can she participate? I’m not sure. Maybe she’ll go to school. Maybe she won’t.

Last year she completely bailed out on her drama class performance because once she got home after school, she decided she was too tired. I tried everything. Even her teacher talked to her on the phone. No movement. People were pretty mad at her the next day, but eventually it blew over. Then her report card came. Mostly A’s and then a D in drama. We agreed she had it coming. It didn’t feel good, but even if I remind her about that today, we all know she won’t care enough to change her behavior. She’s just not built that way.

Yesterday the only thing I had required of her was a shower. She has that performance tonight and she should at least be clean.

Guess what? No shower. Her scheme instead: her last period today is called Advisory. It’s a 90-minute block where the whole school is sort of on pause. Students are able to visit whatever teacher they choose for help, or just do homework, or whatever. Today, though, she planned to go to the gym and take a shower. What kid would ever opt for a school gym shower instead of one at home? Maddie, that’s who. We discussed this idea for awhile last night. I told her I wasn’t confident about her follow-through.

“Well, how can you know if I can do this if you don’t give me a chance?” she argued. Oh, she’s good. And to some degree she’s right. This particular plan hasn’t come into play before, so I can’t know if she’ll actually do it. But what she doesn’t understand is that her failure to get up in the morning, or take a shower at night, or do all the other things she’s supposed to do, is directly related to my faith in her follow-through on the gym/shower plan. I could tell my arguments weren’t going to get her in the shower last night, so I reluctantly conceded. She had to pack her shower stuff last night in preparation, and she dutifully did as I asked.

Here’s the thing: I have no doubt that in moments like that, Maddie fully intends to do what she plans. She can’t imagine that she won’t. She can’t imagine why she wouldn’t. So in her mind, it’s absurd of me to doubt her. Unfortunately, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. I need to throw those words out at her. Pointless, I’m sure, but maybe I’ll feel better.

It’s 8:07 a.m. I’m already burnt out for the day but I have so much more parenting to do, including–I hope–getting her to her performance tonight and enjoying the fruits of all our labor. I love to watch her perform. She’s a committed actor, fearless and funny. I could use some of that tonight, some of the fun parts of parenting. But I have a long way to go. Almost eleven hours.

I’m hopeful. Maybe stupidly, but still I’m hopeful. I am hopeful the play will be enough motivation to get her up and going. Just for today. And, for better or worse, tomorrow will be another day. But at least it won’t be a Tuesday.

So how do you move the unmovable? Beats me.

 

 

 

 

Trip to Party City

Chris Irvine, Parent Coach1 Comment

Today I drove Maddie across the county to her current favorite store, Party City. I hate that store. I hate the Target/Costco shopping center in which it’s located. It’s a madhouse, particularly around the holidays. I don’t like driving up there–ever. I prefer to live my life as locally as possible, within a town or two. I never go to Trader Joe’s because it’s twelve minutes away. Target is 20. So forget it.

But I had promised Maddie I would take her there. It was part of the campaign to get her to join us for Thanksgiving. The following two days I didn’t feel well; plus it was Black Friday and whatever Saturday was, so there was no way I’d go anywhere near that massive retail development. That left today, Sunday. I promised her no matter how bad I was feeling I would take her. So I did.

We agreed we would leave around 1:00 p.m. She had some RPing (role playing) to do online in Minecraft before we went anywhere, and that was fine with me. Just a few minutes after 1:00, she appeared in my room, fully clothed with a hat on.

“Uh, you have to put regular pants on,” I said, referring to her baggy sweats. “And a bra. And you have to brush your hair.” She wasn’t thrilled.

“This is fine,” she insisted.

“Well, I want you to put pants on and a bra. You also smell a little bit.”

“That’s just my deodorant,” she said. “Trust me.”

So just as we all did with our babies’ diapered butts, I shoved my nose into her armpit to check the smell. “No, that’s straight up BO. You need to wash up and change your shirt.”

She informed me it didn’t matter, but for once I had the upper hand. “Well, that’s what you have to do if I’m taking you,” I said.

And, for once, she accepted her fate and turned around to take care of business.

Once she was dressed and ready to go (this time in shorts even though it was about 50 degrees today, what I call “California cold”), we hopped in the car. It was an easy drive, thankfully. And to my surprise, the shopping center parking lot wasn’t especially crowded, considering the day. At first I had planned to do other things while she shopped (Sephora is nearby, and I’d much rather try on lip gloss and eye shadow in that nice store than hang out in Party City), but I walked in with her and decided to stay for a bit. The store was nearly empty, as opposed to the day before Halloween, which was the last time we went, when the line inside went across the front and down an aisle all the way to the back of the store.

“What are you looking for?” I decided to ask. I came to wish I had asked her long before we left because although she had spent some time preparing, her “list” consisted of images of characters of which she wants to create costumes for herself. So each item she wanted still required a bit of consideration. Oh boy.

After about 30 minutes in the store, it occurred to me to ask, “So how many characters are you working on?”

She didn’t have an immediate answer for that question, but after thinking about it she answered, “Seven. Well really more. I have pictures of seven but I know there are a couple more. I just can’t remember what they are.”

Ugh. Not only did she want to shop for parts of costumes for SEVEN different characters, the items she needed were mostly not going to be readily available at Party City. If it had been before Halloween, we might have had a more of a chance to find whatever she wanted, but all the Halloween stuff was all put in boxes and the Christmas and New Year’s stuff was going up. The boxes crowded the back of the store where we were spending almost all of our time.

I tried to help her get through her sort-of list.

“What else do you need?”

“A yellow belt. And yellow boots…Hey maybe I could get this furry skirt and make it into a belt.”

I could see where this was going. One of Maddie’s greatest gifts is her resourcefulness. Another is her determination. But sometimes those combine to result in some ridiculous and unworkable solutions to problems. For example, making that furry skirt into a belt. It was $20, for one thing. And it would be a lot of unnecessary work for probably a pretty unsatisfactory if not absurd outcome. I talked her out of it. I assured her we could find something better. Furry leg warmers also seemed like a good idea for yellow boots. I shot her down gently. Sometimes I have to save her from herself.

This kind of thing went on for awhile. I helped her find a few things. I talked her out of a few. I also mentioned several times that their supply of of costume-related items would be limited right now, but that Amazon would probably have much more because its merchandise isn’t so seasonal. She understood that but really wanted to maximize her Party City experience. I preferred the idea of sitting comfortably at home, with more pleasant lighting, searching the internet. That just sounded so nice.

After an hour or so, I felt the bad florescent lighting doing its dark magic on my migraine-susceptible brain. Plus I was just tired of being in that store, looking at crap. I asked Maddie to please try to wrap it up, but she had a bit more shopping to do. Since she had brought her own money, I excused myself and said I’d be waiting outside.

After another 20 minutes of waiting outside, I had run out of patience. I needed to get out of there. So after looking around the entire store, I finally found her hunched over a box gleefully looking through whatever merchandise was in there.

Shortly before I had gone outside, she has spotted a couple swords in one of the dozens of boxes that were packed up and ready to leave the store in exchange for the seasonal stuff moving in. Apparently her discovery led her down a slippery slope. One box led to another box and another and another. The entire time I’d been outside, she was opening boxes and searching through them for who-knows-what. She sure was enjoying herself!

But I was just done. So I told her to wrap it up. It was time to go.

“No!” she exclaimed happily. “I need to look through more boxes!”

“Maddie, it’s time to go.” No response.

“Maddie.”

“Maddie!”

“Madeline!!!” I finally shouted. “We need to go NOW!” I found myself getting a little loud at this point. I didn’t want to, but she wasn’t hearing me and I was getting increasingly desperate to end this little excursion.

Fortunately Maddie got the message. I grabbed the Cart o’ Crap and pushed it quickly to the checkout counter at the front of the store. Maddie stood there and looked at the clerk. Finally she put one item on the counter, at which point she felt she needed to explain that item to the cashier. And then she just stood there, staring blankly.

A migraine was becoming almost inevitable. I had to get out of there. I grabbed all her stuff and shoved it onto the counter and told Maddie to get out her money. Thankfully the cashier was efficient and soon the transaction was over and we could leave.

I did it! I took Maddie to Party City and I lived to tell the tale! I didn’t even cry once! I didn’t end up with a migraine (close call!) and Maddie was happy with her various wigs, streamers, a yellow cape, and some other random crap (as Maddie would say).

 

I’m pretty sure my Mother of the Year award will arrive soon. I hope it’s made of chocolate. Or jewelry.

P.S. On our way home, traffic came to a stop. I was distressed. I knew it would be a bad day to travel, but I still didn’t expect that. As it turned out, though, holiday traffic wasn’t to blame. The delay was due to a terrible crash. As we passed the scene, I saw the cars that had been involved. One clearly had rolled once or twice. The other was demolished in the front. I had a bad feeling. There was a good chance at least somebody didn’t survive. I just learned I was right. One driver lost control, spun and became airborne. And she died. The other driver isn’t in good shape either.

So now, thinking about what I considered a difficult, stressful couple of hours seems but a trifle. So I had to go to a store I hate and stay longer than I wanted. So what? I have a cool, interesting kid who fully embraces her nerdiness. And she is happy and healthy and safe. All is well.

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Detour

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

Thanksgiving almost didn’t include Maddie this year. Thankfully our family knows how to be flexible or she would have stayed home while the rest of us–including the dog–would have enjoyed a nice family day out of town.

The week started with two days of school. Well, one school day in the end since Maddie skipped school Monday but somehow managed to get herself there even though the next day was a Tuesday. Wednesday was a day off, and Maddie devoted herself to Minecraft. She didn’t want to do anything else, and I was happy to let her chill out. I did want her to take a shower, though, in preparation for Thursday. “I’ll do it in the morning,” she said. Yeah, sure.

I got up Thursday morning before anybody else because I had some cooking to finish. Also, with five people living here now, all in need of a morning shower, I knew that getting mine out of the way early was the way to go.

Because I was working in the kitchen, I asked Jake (my husband) to make sure Maddie got up and took a shower. I knew it would be a challenge because it always is. I had woken her up but she hadn’t moved. And after Jake had tried to stir her, I went to check on her as well. There she was, flopped down awkwardly on her bed as if she had just collapsed there. Perhaps she had.

Oh, no. Here we go. 

Not only was a shower off the table, as far as Maddie was concerned, so was going anywhere.  She was going to skip the whole thing.

Oh, hell no, I thought. I am flexible to a fault, but I wasn’t going to let her skip this one. She would be missing cousins she rarely sees, and I am trying to impress upon her the importance of spending time with her grandparents. Nobody’s getting any younger, and her grandparents–on both sides–happen to be among her biggest fans. This was not going to go her way. I felt my body tense and my mind focus on getting Maddie out the door. I wasn’t going to let this go any other way.

Much before I was willing to give in, Jake let her off the hook for the shower. “Just put on a hat,” he told her. I thought she was pretty gross, and I really wanted her to clean up, but he was right. Priorities!

Still, however, she wasn’t budging.

“I want to go to Party City,” she declared. Party City is a party supply store that happens to be located somewhat on the way to my in-laws’ house, where we were headed.

“I’ll tell you what. If you go with us today, I’ll take you there this weekend. I promise.”

“I want to go TODAY.”

“They’re not open today,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“They’re just not. Pretty much every store is closed today.”

I pulled up the number for the store and called in order to prove it. No answer, of course, but that wasn’t enough to convince Maddie. Then a lightbulb moment. “Well, we can drive there and see,” I offered. “If it’s open, you can go in for ten minutes.” Ha! Then we would be in the car and on our way and she would be stuck!

So she got dressed and got in the car and the whole family plus the dog were on our way to Thanksgiving dinner at with my in-laws. Victory!

Party City is a few minutes out of the way, but we drove there anyway, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be open. For a moment my husband tried to convince Maddie that the detour was pointless, ensuring her the store would be closed, but Maddie still wouldn’t concede. And I quickly ended that conversation. I knew we had to go. It was just part of being Maddie’s family that day. A drive out of the way to a store we knew would be closed sounds so useless, but it was the magic that needed to happen.

As predicted, we pulled into an empty parking lot. Maddie still wasn’t convinced. When she could see the lights were off, she finally gave in. Okay, it’s closed. Fortunately, although she was disappointed, she accepted the situation gracefully, especially after I promised her I would take her in the next day or two.

We had a nice long visit with our family. Maddie enjoyed her cousins and the superb homemade macaroni and cheese and brownies that supplemented the usual Thanksgiving menu. She was happy.

That night, as I tucked her into bed, I asked, “Did you have a good time today?”

“Yes!”

I knew the answer to that question before I asked. I wish that next time she doesn’t want to go somewhere I could remind her of her hesitation today and the positive outcome and it would make an impact. But it won’t. I’ll probably have to take a detour to Party City or coax her into the car some other way.

That’s just how it is. In times like this, I’m just grateful that SOMETHING worked. Something, anything.

Thanks for a Bunch of Stuff

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

It’s the day before Thanksgiving. I’m busy cooking away. The first thing I’m thankful for, though, is that I’m not hosting. Several years ago I made my first and last Thanksgiving turkey. That sucker was vile, in my opinion. I have decided that any meat I eat needs to look as little as possible like the animal from which it came. I should probably be a vegetarian, but a little meat here and there is just so darned delicious. Especially bacon. And not so much turkey, anyway.

I’m also making spaghetti with meat sauce for tonight’s dinner. I discovered I like cooking so much more when (1) it feels totally optional, (2) lots of people are going to eat it and hopefully rave about my cooking, (3) I don’t have to clean up (that remains to be seen), and (4) I have music to listen to. Jamming to my Amazon Prime streaming music on the Amazon Echo (product plug!), so tonight it’s all good.

I have hosted Thanksgiving since what I will call the Turkey Incident (only because a turkey happened here), but I had vowed that any turkey served at my house must arrive here already cooked. Or at least not seen or handled raw by me. And, as it turned out, everybody was up for something different anyway, so I made filet mignon one year and meatballs in a creamy tomato sauce last year. Both were delicious and I don’t think anybody missed the usual fare. Also most people probably had it elsewhere on another day, so I didn’t feel bad at all.

We will be having the whole turkey business tomorrow, but today I’m just making about 172 pounds of  Brussels sprouts (with bacon!), chocolate chip cookies, and some guacamole. And then we get to drive about 45 minutes to mess up somebody else’s house. I’m stoked.

The second thing I’m thankful for is my weird and wonderful family. I often despair that my kids are such polar opposites that doing anything together as a family is a real challenge. Tempers flare on those occasions, too. It can be stressful and depressing for me as the mom. But one thing we all do together so well is laugh. We love to crack jokes, make sarcastic comments, dance funny dances and play slightly inappropriate card games (now that we have teens in the house, that is). We laugh so much. Humor has always been central to my life experience. I would rather laugh or make you laugh or laugh at myself than just about anything. And we do that. A lot.

This applies to my extended family as well. Whenever we get together, my niece Maggie makes sure we play some games. A year or two ago we started playing a game (it’s really just more of an activity because nobody wins or loses). Everybody has a paper and pen and for two minutes everybody writes the beginning of a story. When the time is up, everybody passes their paper to the left and the next person continues where the previous person left off. Everyone writes furiously for two minutes. And in the end we inevitably have a collection of stories that range from funny to tear-inducingly hilarious. It turns out everybody in my family is not only hilarious but also creative. You can usually tell what Maddie wrote because she often gets stuck on a phrase (for a long time it was “flaring butt cheeks”). And I always thought I was the funny one. 😦

(An extra little shout=out of gratitude for my niece, Rachel, who is gracing my life with her wonderful self right now.)

I’m also thankful for the family I married into. I am one of those lucky women who adores her mother-in-law. It’s mutual, it’s safe to say. She’s kind and fun and honest and open and a true friend. She and my father-in-law have always treated me with such kindness, love and respect. I’m proud to be part of that family.

I’m also thankful for all my friends. My life is full of the best women. My oldest friendship is with Melinda–34 years of friendship and counting. She and her husband Jonathan successfully played matchmaker about 19 years ago, and the result is my marriage of 17 years (so far) and two crazy kids. Another result is a four-way friendship among us that is one of the greatest joys of my life. Jonathan is my husband’s childhood friend, so the history between us is unusual and deep. Our families are intertwined and our friendships are the best combination of friendship and family. We spent the evening together last weekend, and, as always, I laughed and laughed. I also didn’t want to stop hugging them.

I have so many wonderful friendships, and that term is really meaningful to me. Friendship means a close connection, being there in spirit if not in body. It means holding the other person wherever they may be. It means doing what you can to help, whether it’s picking up their kids, hanging out having an afternoon glass of wine while we try to solve each other’s problems, or sending a message of support in difficult times even if there are 3,000 miles between us. From the friends I made in high school and college and grad school across the country, to all the awesome women I’ve met through my children, I love and cherish them all.

I have so many other things to be thankful for. This beautiful place I live in, the community I’ve become so much a part of, the resources to help our special needs kid (we are SO lucky), a roof over my head, food on the table. I have everything I need and so much more. Despite the stress I write about so much (and it is real), the truth is I’m very happy. I have so much to be grateful for. And every day, not just today, I am grateful.

Last week I was snuggling up with my seventh-grader at bedtime. “We talked about gratitude in class today,” he told me. “Studies show that people who are grateful are happier.” He clarified: “It’s not that happy people are more grateful. It’s being grateful that makes you happy.”

I think he can move onto eighth grade now. Or maybe straight into adulthood. He has learned the biggest lesson of all. Focus on gratitude, and you will be happier.

So Happy Thanksgiving, all. May the gratitude you feel tomorrow and throughout the season stay with you forever. And may you laugh tomorrow at least half as much as I will.

Step One

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

I decided some time ago that I wouldn’t chronicle in my blog the minute details of when Maddie does and does not go to school. Too much of the same thing day after day. She went to school, yay! She wouldn’t budge, boo.

Today, however, the travails of school attendance leaped onto the forefront of my parenting life as my husband Jake and I met with the educational consultant to discuss the possibilities for Maddie. Or really to discuss how to determine what the possibilities are. At this point, we don’t have a clue.

There are many challenges in choosing a path. As with every fork in the road, where the paths lead is uncertain. What if we…? Who knows? Who knows whether each decision we make is the right one or the wrong one? Nobody. So we do the best we can we the information we have (and whatever information we are still to get), and hope for the best.

When the topic of boarding school comes up, people are generally sympathetic. Often they see how this challenge takes a toll on me. Well, they are right: the effort I expend parenting Maddie as a teenager and the general feeling of futility put an awful lot of stress on me.

But if we do in fact send her away, it will be for one reason and one reason only: it’s the best thing for Maddie. It will not be to save me any stress. In fact, the thought of not being there for Maddie when she comes home from school with a problem, or when she wakes up sick, is heartbreaking. But what we want for her is to live up to at least some modicum of her potential. She is a clever, creative, lovable, warm, interesting person. She is passionate about the things that interest her. She is resourceful and enthusiastic. She’s also hilarious. For her, a meaningful life should include friendships and some way of contributing to society, whether paid or not. She is fully capable of accomplishing things, whether she’s gardening or teaching or working with animals or writing or making things with duct tape. Plus, people love her. She’s so fun to be around. She should feel the rewards of friendships and feel appreciated for her gifts.

At the moment, those things seem so far away. At least once a week she decides she’s not going to school. We don’t know why, exactly, but we’re pretty sure the problem lies not in the school Maddie attends, and not in Maddie’s performance when she’s there. A day at school is typically pretty successful across the board. She’s productive, happy, and well-liked.

The problem is getting her there consistently. And getting her to do her homework when she’d rather not. It’s a daily struggle. The point, though, isn’t necessarily her academic success. For right now, it’s learning to do it anyway. Learning to get up when she’s tired, to do the things that are boring or laborious or challenging anyway. I don’t care if she gets straight A’s or straight C’s as much as I care about her finding something inside of herself to motivate her. I realize she’s only 15 and anyone that age has a lot of growing up to do, but her future is so uncertain, I’m afraid to just wait around for her to figure this out on her own.

Today the question arose: What if she can never find motivation? What if that never happens?

My response: I can’t go there. I have to have hope. I have to believe in Maddie. I have to believe that she will be able to be a contributing member of society, to have friends, to get out in the world and share her tremendous gifts. At the moment it seems that, if given the choice, Maddie would spend her days in her cave of a room playing Minecraft. Uh, no. She’s too awesome for that.

And because she’s so awesome, it remains my job to try and try and try to help her live her best life. We just want her to be happy, and to be happy, I think she needs to feel valuable, important, appreciated and loved. And so I continue to fight for her, to ponder the possibilities, to investigate possible avenues to bring that to fruition, to make the most of the resources we have, and to find new resources, whatever they may be, to push her as much as I can without pushing her too far, to encourage her without berating her, to love her and cherish her and figure out how much, exactly, to expect and demand from her.

The result of the meeting today was this: I am going to get additional evaluations of Maddie so that we can be better informed about her strengths and challenges (not academic–it’s called a personality screening), for ourselves and for any potential educators. The consultant will go to the high school and observe Maddie to help round out the picture. Then we will consider the options. It may be leaving her at her current school with additional help; it may be moving her to another local school that’s more compelling to her; it may be sending her to a mildly therapeutic boarding school. That’s the order of my preference, with the first being WAY out in front. We don’t even know if there’s a boarding school that would be a good fit. We don’t know if there are resources here that can help us. It’s all very much up in the air.

So there we have it. We are nowhere closer, really, to knowing what the plan is than we were yesterday. But we have, at least, begun the process of making a plan. And we know that plan could change, or we could take a path and it might fail and we might have to redirect. Such is the nature of parenting. Such is the nature of life.

At best, we make informed choices and hope for the best. And then we remain open to making a different choice. When a change of course is necessary, it’s just information. So we take that information and try again.

And hope for the best.

Voices

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

As I was tucking Maddie into bed tonight, after a rather frustrating and exhausting couple of days with her, she shared this little nugget:

“At school I read a bunch of symptoms of disease in my Smeagol voice.”

“What?” I asked. Seriously, what?

She repeated it.

“When?” I asked. I still had no idea what she was talking about. I also didn’t know what a Smeagol voice was (I had to Google this to get the spelling, by the way).

Her P.E. class is currently doing Red Cross First Aid and CPR certification, which I love. I also love her P.E. teacher. And now I love her even more.

Maddie was to read aloud from their textbook, and began reading in her Marvin the Martian voice (remember that little guy in the Bugs Bunny cartoons?).

Ms. B asked if Maddie could do any other voices.

“Yes, Smeagol.”

“How about reading some in that voice?”

And so Maddie did. (Smeagol, I now understand, is Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, that weird little guy with an unhealthy obsession with the titular ring.) And when she was finished, everybody in the class clapped.

That was last Friday, five days ago. And in typical fashion, it took Maddie that long to tell me. And I am so happy she did. What a nice way to end the day–with a smile and some hope.

Today I spoke to the educational consultant. My husband I are meeting with her next week to discuss potential boarding schools. I still do not intend to send Maddie away. I want her to stay home and continue at this wonderful public school where the teachers and kids like her swords and appreciate her ridiculous voices. I’ve wanted so badly for her to find it in herself to make this work. And now I want that even more. But ultimately it’s up to her.

I hope she makes it work. I really really do.

A Hard Lesson Probably Not Learned

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

You know how if you miss a week of work, it’s not really like taking time off? It’s just moving it from one week to the next, when you’ll just have twice as much. As adults, we all know it’s coming, so missing work is a calculated decision on our part, whether it’s for physical health or mental health reasons. That work isn’t going to vanish just because you’re not there.

This morning, after skipping school yesterday, Maddie got up with a fair amount of verve and intention. It was the usual morning of increasing tension, as she was doing what she needed, but at a snail’s pace, and then, just as the clock struck 7:15 and it was time for her to be meeting the cab outside, she thought of two more things to do. Stressful, but normal for us. Off to a relatively good start.

Today Maddie had a dentist appointment, and her dentist happens to be near her school, so I picked her up after school instead of having her catch the cab. I can always tell immediately what kind of day she had, regardless of the words that come out of her mouth. She almost always says her day was great, and today was no exception, but her voice was flat and her eyes were down, so I knew she wasn’t being honest.

After some coaxing, I finally got a confession: she had NOT had a great day, and the reasons boiled down to (1) lunchtime detention for cutting school the day before, which she forgot to go to (or avoided) and (2) a giant pile of homework for tonight. She doesn’t tend to have too much homework because of her IEP and because she has lots of time to do work at school. I am so grateful for that.

But yesterday she missed a whole day of both classwork and homework, so tonight she faced five pages of math and a page each of English and history. For her that’s overwhelming.

And THEN she was going to the dentist, which, like most people, she hates. We drove to the dentist’s office, and since we had some time to kill, I suggested she make good use of it. She’s reading Of Mice and Men* with her English class, so I suggested we read some of it on my phone (thank you, Kindle!). She resisted, but somehow or other I got her to go along, mostly reading it aloud to me.

Then it was time to go in the building. “I’m not getting out of the car,” Maddie declared. And I knew she wouldn’t. She had already shown resistance, from the moment she got in the car, and I had tried both a promise of a reward and a logical explanation of the consequences (who knows if the rescheduled appointment will come on a better day?), but, nope, it was not happening.

Fortunately the dentist and her staff are both kind and compassionate. The receptionist was understanding and offered to reschedule. I cancel appointments at that place constantly, and in fact canceled my son’s last appointment because of trouble with Maddie. I’m probably the flakiest mom they have at that practice as I probably only get my kids to a third of their appointments, always canceling at the last minute and then maybe getting them there several months later. It’s a miracle that my 15-year-old has never had a cavity and my 13-year-old just has his first one–a tiny one–given the lack of effort we have put into dental care over the years.

After making a new appointment, I returned to the car, and we headed home. Maddie finished reading me the chapter in her book on the way. Every once in awhile, she was start to shut down. She wanted to cry. She wanted to pout. She even said that out loud. And then when we pulled in the driveway, she didn’t really want to get out of the car. After all, the next thing to face was that huge mountain of work.

We made an agreement. She would do one hour of hard work and then she could take a break and watch a show. She was amenable to that and was able to sit down and sort of focus for awhile, although I was intimately involved in her homework, writing her math so she could just think and talk, encouraging her when she felt stumped, refocusing her when she got distracted, and giving her lots of positive reinforcement. She didn’t finish all her homework, but she gave it a good try.

So now she is done. She is watching her show. And I am ambivalent about our evening together. I really coached her through a hard time, and she was able to get through it. That’s a good thing. I also pointed out more than once that her problems were directly related to the choices she had made yesterday. I knows she understands that intellectually. I made sure she does. The problem is, will she be able to apply what she knows right now next time she wants to stay home from school? I’m not so sure. Mostly that’s because of Maddie’s challenges, but I wonder right now if I haven’t just undermined my own lesson. I wanted her to get her homework done so badly that I sat with her and gently but firmly guided her through it. And I let her quit after a good 90-minute session in which she nearly quit several times. Perhaps I should have let her suffer the consequences a bit more. Perhaps giving her my company and gentle encouragement weren’t the best course of action. Perhaps the lesson she needed was how much two days of work sucks more than one day’s worth, rather than whatever she was learning in math and English.

It’s too late now. Today’s lessons are done. For both of us. Maddie will go to sleep tonight, tired and glad today is over. Tomorrow she will wake up and probably have no immediate recollection of today’s suffering. I’ll remember it, though! Let’s hope I remember, the next time Maddie skips school, the lessons that matter most and hold Maddie accountable and maybe let her suffer the natural consequences a bit more.

As all parents know, the hardest part of parenting is the not knowing how well we’re doing until it’s too late. When our kids have become adults, we can look at them and think, Well, I guess I did okay! Or, Gee, I should have done this other thing. But until then, the results are still in process. So who knows what effect today’s events and my parenting in the midst of them will have on Maddie. Maybe none. Probably none. We shall see.

 

 

The Day I Lost My Mind

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

I say this all the time. I mean, who doesn’t? “I’m going to lose my mind!” I say. “I’m going to go crazy!”

Well, today it feels like losing my mind is a distinct possibility. And that is because it wouldn’t be the first time. In 2007 I had what we all refer to as my nervous breakdown. I don’t know if there’s a single definition of “nervous breakdown,” but something happened that was serious and undeniable and that changed me.

At the end of summer and in early fall that year, a lot was going on. In addition to parenting my challenging seven-year-old yet-undiagnosed daughter and a five-year-old son, we were about to embark on a whole house remodel. Our house was about to be taken down the studs, which meant we needed to move out. I was charged with finding somewhere to live for the next six to nine months (ten, in the end). It was a difficult task to be sure: not only was the rental market terrible, we had two cats, which nobody would accept; we didn’t want to sign a year lease; we wanted something close to the school; and to top it all off, it was urgent in a way, but I couldn’t actually do anything because we didn’t have our construction permit yet. We didn’t want to pay rent until we really needed to. “Hurry up and find a place but we can’t actually sign a contract, so do this but don’t do this!” I was under so much pressure but completely powerless.

And then our house became infested with fleas. I didn’t realize we had such an infestation until Maddie showed me what had started as a flea bite but was then scratched into a big mess. Such a mess that it turned into a staph infection, and a dangerous strain of one. She had to miss several days of school to soak in a tub all day long to drain the infection and take antibiotics. The doctor called every day to check on her. It was serious.

And then I couldn’t get rid of the fleas. Nothing was working. I tried everything, and the fleas were still there. I combed and combed and combed our cats, and I still found fleas. Eventually we moved out after flea-bombing our furniture and rugs, and then left the cats there for another week. I would go over every day for a week and a half and comb then and comb then until I the fleas were gone. We couldn’t move our fleas to the new place!

I was also packing up our entire house by myself, for the most part, because I was at home and my husband worked long days in between a long commute. Apparently it was all too much.

It was sometime in August when the sensation started. I felt a little tingle in the middle of my chest. It was strictly a physical sensation. I couldn’t link it to an emotion at the time. I took note and wondered, Hmmm, what is that?

As the weeks went by, the tingling became stronger. I still didn’t connect it to anything in particular, but it was harder to ignore. It was pretty uncomfortable, and really I knew it was stress but that was as much as I could deduce.

And then it happened. A panic attack. I was at the grocery store. I walked in and the whole place began to swirl. I felt the panic rise in my chest. And the tears came. I could not cope with grocery shopping and I wouldn’t be able to for months after that.

I cried when I ran out of butter. I cried when I couldn’t find a knife to cut a grilled cheese sandwich in half. I cried and cried. I was unable to make meals. I was unable to be social. I skipped Thanksgiving and sat alone at home by the heater and cried.  I was debilitated by anxiety and panic. I didn’t know why this was happening, but my body was trying to tell me something.

And that something was that I needed to take care of myself. I still struggle with that concept. I don’t think I know how. I grew up with a over-self-sacrificing mom, and although I’m not nearly as selfless as she is, I have had difficulty thinking about the importance of self-care as a way to be a better person for everybody myself and everybody else. I know that’s true. I would tell anybody else that’s true. But I don’t know how to do it very well.

Panic and anxiety disorder are hard things to describe to someone else. It doesn’t sound nearly as terrible as it is. Some people feel like they’re going to die from a heart attack. I didn’t feel that way at all. I just felt incapacitated and scared. And when you feel that much anxiety, depression is inevitable. How can you feel so incapacitated and helpless without getting kind of depressed about it?

I remember not wanting to go to sleep because I knew I would wake up feeling terrible yet again. Feeling unable to face anything. Feeling overwhelmed, afraid, and then guilty because I wasn’t able to take care of my family, which was really my primary responsibility.

Of course, at that point I could see I had a big problem. I couldn’t go on feeling that way, so I immediately got the help I needed. There’s no magic involved, although some medication sure came in handy. But I also had to embark on a journey to figure out why I went down this road, and how I could change myself so that wouldn’t happen again.

One of my big challenges was to learn how to set boundaries. You hear that a lot in the world of psycho-therapy. Here’s what it meant for me: First, stop taking on other people’s problems as if they are actually your own. I have enough of my own problems to do that! Second, stand up for yourself. Third, don’t take things so personally. That means recognizing that somebody else’s treatment of you isn’t necessarily about YOU at all. I began to learn to think “Jeez, that person has big a problem” rather than “This is crushing my soul.”

I have known for a long time that improving your life isn’t necessarily about changing the external. I once had a friend who lived all over the world and no matter where he was, that place was making him miserable. Finally I realized, it’s HIM. It’s up to him to figure out what’s going on inside and then make himself happy wherever he is.

So here I am with some pretty complicated and challenging external circumstances. I wish I could fix them. I wish Maddie would get up and go to school. I wish she wasn’t so stubborn. I wish I could know what her future will hold. I wish my mornings were relaxing and fun instead of a recurring nightmare of frustration and anxiety and the feeling of futility.  I am doing what I can do make my mornings better, but I also realize that’s out of my control.

What IS in my control–theoretically anyway–is how I manage it all. Right now, to be honest, I’m struggling.

Today I planned to visit my parents for the afternoon. They live about an hour away. Last week my dad had a minor stroke. He’s fine, but when things like this start happening, the reality of your parents’ mortality rears its ugly head. I was away for the weekend, and now I’m back and I’m dying to spend some time with them.

This morning, however, Maddie announced, “Screw Tuesdays.” Yes, today is Tuesday. And yes, she is still at home. I still planned to drive up north for a couple hours, but I just can’t. I’m feeling so anxious and afraid of that tingly feeling of pre-panic rising up. The tears are there, mostly behind my eyes, burning as their way to tell me, “Let us out!” A couple fell, but I don’t give in easily in times like this. I’ll cry if I see a little kid singing really well, or a cute dog commercial, or somebody else crying, but I don’t like to cry for myself. I don’t like to cry over my life. I just don’t.

Maybe I should cry more. Maybe the panic attacks started as a way of forcing my body to express my emotions. They just came flooding out. I was holding it all in until I just couldn’t anymore. Perhaps I should watch a sad movie today and just cry and cry.

At the moment, I’m hiding in our “man cave,” which is separate from our house. Maddie thinks I left, I think. She was relentlessly begging me for her computer, and I had said no enough times, I thought. She followed me around the house, asking me again and again. The blood was rushing to my head. I don’t have one of those bulging forehead veins, but I might develop one if this keeps happening.

I’m trying to breathe and stay calm. Maybe I should scream instead. But I won’t. I’ll breathe and breathe, and at some point I’ll get up the courage to go back in the house. All the while, trying to find peace in my head and in my body, and the strength to do this again tomorrow.

My Tiny Place in the Universe

Chris Irvine, Parent CoachLeave a comment

Tonight my husband and I have the good fortune to be in Big Sur, California, for a weekend getaway. We don’t do this very often, so just getting away is wonderful enough on its own, but spending our days and nights on the beautiful and rugged California coast is a gift. We settled into our room and then, after the sun set, strolled up the path way to a soaking infinity tub that overlooks the ocean. We couldn’t see the ocean, of course. Not only is it night time, but the moon was new tonight, just barely an orange sliver that eventually slipped over the horizon. We were left gazing only at the stars (it is REALLY dark here), and there are so many of them visible here. We could even see the milky way. Coming from a small town that lay amid the vast metropolis that is the San Francisco Bay Area, we don’t usually see that many stars. Too many lights below showing people where to go on the ground to see the magnificence above.

Today is the day of the massive terror attacks in Paris. We were blissfully unaware of the events of the day as we spent the afternoon in Carmel near the end of an easy, leisurely drive down the coast.

My husband’s reaction to the news was sadness. Mine was surely sadness, but it manifested itself more as a kick in the stomach. I don’t want anybody suffer the pain and horror and fear and heartbreak that befell this country fourteen years ago, and that on a smaller scale continue to plague us. We read the news shortly after we checked in to our room. My husband was unprepared for bad news. He doesn’t always know how to process it. Who does, really? But I tend to do a little more diving in. I need to gather information and go headfirst into the sadness. I will feel it fully and that’s okay with me.

Out in the pool, sitting in the dark, breathing in the air and the stars and the darkness and the solitude, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with gratitude. Here we are, thousands of miles away from such a harrowing tragedy, living our little lives and having our little thoughts. There are billions of stars in the sky. And here we are, two people doing nothing of particular importance in the world, which itself has little particular importance in the scheme of things.

We’re so far removed in every way from real life. Even our own real lives.

I think of Maddie. I think of all the anxiety and stress I feel over parenting her. I think of the weekly chats I have with my therapist, who helps me figure out how to process what I’m facing, how to be good to myself, and how to, in both emotional and practical terms, parent both Maddie and my son. You would think my life, my mom-hood, is momentous based on the mental energy that goes into it.

But in moments like these, I wonder. I am one of those in-the-moment, here-and-now, do-what-needs-to-be-done kind of people. I really don’t spend much time pondering the meaning of life, or what is my path to happiness, or much beyond just living my life. I don’t know if it’s my nature or a product of having a special needs kid, which certainly encourages, if not requires, that kind of outlook.

And today, whatever energy I do put into all that, might seem pointless in the grand view of space and time, particularly when the people in Paris, in Syria, and so many other parts of the world are suffering.

I will go home the day after tomorrow. I will struggle with Maddie to get her to do her homework. I suspect I will have to ask her 20 times to take a shower. I’ll cook dinner (maybe) and clean up the kitchen and throw on a load of laundry. The usual stuff. That’s not going away. And I’m not going to give up trying because of my tiny place in the universe.

I will keep trying because my tiny place is mine, and it’s the only one I’ve got. I’ll keep trying because Maddie deserves it. She deserves to use her tiny place to its maximum potential. She deserves a mom who will see it to the end, who will not let tragedy in the world color her view, who will continue to be optimistic and hopeful about the world. A mom who, despite a constant cycle of bad news, doesn’t have a cynical bone in her body. A mom who believes in Maddie, who believes Maddie’s life is destined for greatness, and by greatness I mean love and compassion.

That’s where it’s at. Love and compassion. I will teach her about the world, its beauty and its sadness, and encourage her to retain the immense gifts of love and compassion with which she was born. That tiny spot in the universe makes a ripple, after all. And even if the ripple is tiny, too, a good ripple is worth making.

To everyone affected by the terrorist attacks in France, my heart goes out to you. May you heal fully and find more love and compassion than ever before. We’re sending it to you from my corner of the world.